> the stability of buying

It depends.

Personally, after witnessing both sides of the coin second-hand, I am not leaning in the direction of either buying or renting in absolute. It is highly dependent on the context and circumstances of a specific situation/market.

I am aware that this is just an anecdote (i.e., it isn't going to say much about the overall state of things across all states in the US), but there is a specific example I'd witnessed myself, which led me to believe that this is a bit more complicated than just "renting is the move" and "buying is the move."

TLDR: one of my former coworkers bought a condo in Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle (which is a highly desirable and expensive neighborhood in that metro area). Within the first year of his ownership, the pipes behind his laundry machine burst due to no fault of his own (while he was at work), and it ended up flooding the apartment of the neighbor below. It decimated the flooring of both his own unit and the unit of the neighbor below. He ended up was facing the costs of unfucking his own condo AND the unit below.

I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head at all (as the whole thing happened around 2018-2019, and I wasn't really involved in any direct way at all), but I remember that he did the math and (based upon the numbers, reasonably) ended up selling his condo as soon as he'd finished fixing his own unit + paying for the fixes to the unit below.

Meanwhile, I am currently renting, and if the pipes in my unit burst and end up flooding the neighbors below, it would be mostly the problem of the property management company running my building to deal with, not mine. This alone make me feel way more stable than if I'd owned the unit I live in atm.

If you're renting, getting the landlord to deal with an acute issue is pretty clear cut. They usually get it done. It's the slow burn neglect shit that's almost impossible to get fixed.

Anecdote of my own: The last place we rented before buying had a minor roof leak. Minor, but still a roof leak. The landlord was old, her daughter was responsible for a lot of stuff, and they were both remote for at least part of the year. It took 3 years for them to finally get the roof replaced, evidently about a year after we left.

And these were good landlords. They took care of a bunch of minor disasters in good time: dishwasher, washing machine, thermostats for the baseboard electric heat, stack vent got clobbered by ice coming off the roof? All dealt with promptly. But the roof, important though it was, wasn't a big enough problem to merit quick attention. The place was a log home, and by appearances, hadn't been subjected to any kind of refinishing for a good while too.

In our condominium building (42 floors) the rule is that every apartment owner is responsible for any damages to their apartment, even if they are caused by an apartment in an upper floor. This is because otherwise the owners of the upper floors would have to have million-dollar insurance premiums to cover the possibility of a leak in their apartment causing damages to multiple floors below. We had an event where a burst pipe in the 28th floor caused damages all the way down to the 8th floor.

Buying a condo is half buying and half renting.